Q. I am writing on behalf of a group of parents whose children attend an elementary school in south Orange County. The way our principal runs the school is, to put this mildly, an embarrassment to our community. Over the last five years or so, we have been experiencing the reality of this principal turning our children’s school into a complacent free-for-all, lacking any clear direction (except to our checkbooks).

She does not encourage expectations equally when enforcing required behavior and school rules. We clearly do not see the students receiving the same benefits and educational attention from her as the highly coddled ESL students and families. It is also well known here that there is a very large division between our teachers and our principal. We would like to see ALL of the children, parents and teaching staff treated equally by her, for the children’s sake.

We are aware of the ways that schools are ranked. It is clear she has a career agenda that she is working very hard toward, at all costs, especially if that means completely ignoring some serious issues to achieve those scores. Major behavioral problems are ignored repeatedly, requests for learning assessments are ignored repeatedly, and teacher misconduct (habit of talking on cell phones for extended amounts of time during class time) ignored repeatedly.

It’s no wonder the school scored so highly! The scores that our school received recently in your newspaper are by no means a true reflection of the discontent of the students and parents!

We feel we need a new school principal who is a better fit with the ENTIRE student body and teaching staff, equally. How exactly do we begin the process through the district of having this principal removed, before the start of the next school year?

A. When you gave me details, I didn’t understand one connection: If she is letting teachers talk on cell phones during class and not doing assessments, wouldn’t that school score lower?

You said she ignores requests for learning assessments and this is against the rules. This is something to tell your district, but make sure you can prove it because it will get them to react.

Be careful of going off of what other parents say about something or other that happened. When they are talking about their children, parents often share only what they are comfortable with you hearing and not necessarily all of what their child did or said. Details get left out, etc. So go off of what happens to you directly. Each parent would have to speak for himself or herself.

Sometimes parents just do not like a particular principal and that does not mean this person should be fired or moved. Be careful what you ask for because you do not know which principal you will get next.

If there are unethical things happening, you should express concern. Ask yourself what you want and why you want it. If you think your children need this, do it. If you just do not like this person, do not do it for that reason. Her actions have to be offensive or troublesome, not her personality. That would be my only warning.

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